To Kill A Character

When is it right to kill off a character? When the plot calls for it? When you need something like that to spark the story again? These are correct answers but the correct question was not asked. The above are correct answers to the question - when is the right time to kill off a character.

The original question was 'when is it right to kill off a character?' What's the difference? I may be splitting hairs here but the timing of when you kill off a character is somewhat dictated by the flow and plot of your story. When is it right to do so comes from within the author.

We have heard time and time again that many characters in many books are based on real people. We have characters in our own books that have attributes from people we have come into contact with. Perhaps I am going to an extreme here so let’s back up a moment. Take for example you have a character in your novel that is based on...your mother-in-law. Now in real life you have a heated disagreement with your mother-in-law. How tempted are you to place the character in your novel that reminds you of her in harms way? Perhaps that character has an unfortunate accident. I believe it is safe to assume we all have these thoughts at some point. We connect with our characters and we can see the relation between the characters and the people we based them on.

I have many characters, plots and stories floating in my mind at the moment. I run the different scenarios by my wife to see her reaction and without fail if I mention killing off one of the main characters she replies "you can't do that, they are too much like this person or that person." Of course she is right and after I think on it for a while I start to feel a little guilty about it. I think this is dangerous though because when we start to feel guilty about hurting and/or killing a character because of a growing connection then we are limiting our scope and the directions our manuscripts can go. Let’s look at the mother-in-law example again. Say you actually directed your anger for her to your character and something bad happened to him/her but the next day you had a great time with your mother-in-law. Would you feel guilty and change that portion of your manuscript or let it ride?

Although this situation can become a hindrance to us as writers it can also be very liberating. We can have those unspoken arguments between our characters. We can have our say when we hold back our tongue in real life and we can demonstrate our full anger on a character if we are having one of those really bad, terrible, rotten, no good days. This is both the joy and danger of writing.

When is it right to kill off a character? You can decide that for your own manuscript but I would recommend a mixture of both points. When your plot and story call for it and when you have the pinned up emotion to really deliver it. This will contribute to the flow, keep your story moving forward, and deliver the emotion to really hit the readers. One more thing, if you unleash your anger on a character who reminds you of the person you are mad at and it works within the story run with it. Don't change it after you make up with that person because at the end of the day these are your characters in your book...the real person will never know how they influenced things.